The mummified body of Ötzi, “the Iceman” from the Copper Age was found in the Italian Alps in 1991.

So, you will not show me your hands again, how they cradle a glass of coffee. Intimacy burns a field where no animals live. Nothing to save, you say I say, how does it escape you? That core of a person that gallon that bog that glacier.

As a child, I gazed at the pictures of Ötzi, his thin and leathered arms, tattoos at the wrists, eyes both there and not there. I would never touch the body but spent hours at that kind of love.

Carbon decays, so do our words and the fire in me burns down.

This is notwhere you want me.

The stars make a brighter appearance.

This is notwhere you want me.

In the mountains Ötzi set down his weapons. What do you see, a betrayal? Do not be afraid. When I settled my head on your shoulder in a gallery it was my body; it was all I had.

About the Author

Hannah Larrabee is a poet, science-geek, and former Mainer who grew up on a blueberry farm. Her first full-length collection, Wonder Tissue, won the 2018 Airlie Press Prize. Her chapbook Murmuration (Seven Kitchens Press) is part of the Robin Becker Series for LGBTQ poets. She’s had work appear in: The Adirondack Review, Bomb Cyclone, Harpoon Review, Lambda Literary Spotlight, and elsewhere. Hannah was one of 22 artists selected by NASA to see the James Webb Space Telescope — her JWST poems were displayed at Goddard Space Center. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Hampshire.